


Since When Do We Deserve

by Hooda



Series: Tipping Tides [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back
Genre: Angsty?, Attack on HOTH, Cassian cooks, Cassian learns how to live with a roommate on Hoth, Jyn learns what home and trust are, Multi, Other, Slow Burn, brief mention of torture, cassian doesn't think he deserves anything good in the universe until he meets Jyn, estrellas, jyn likes to reassure Cassian that he deserves anything good in his life, leia is a badass at making friends, some parts are painful because these two assholes dont always communicate, they fight louder than the Solos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-12 01:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10479312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hooda/pseuds/Hooda
Summary: Neither one believes that they truly deserve the other in their lives, but Cassian thinks this more than she does. After a lifetime of having taken on unspeakable assignments from his commanding officers in the shadows of the Alliance’s brightest upstanding morals, he does not think that he deserves the warmth that having Jyn in his life brings.





	1. Hoth

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, for whoever held onto my word that I would write an angsty story, I profusely apologize that this isn't it. In all honesty, these last few weeks have been angsty for myself especially. I promise that yes, there will be something at some point, but most likely not for a while. I want to get my personal things organized before dedicating to a story that will take time, effort, and energy that I do not at the time have.
> 
> This short piece was inspired by some very touching quotes found on Tumblr when Rogue One finally came home this past Friday. I actually started writing it weeks ago, but writer's block hit and nothing really sparked until recently. ~ H :)

Hoth is cold; too cold.

_______

Jyn learns very quickly to what extent Cassian will take the climate in less than a year. He appreciates the safety the desolate planet offers, especially after the Empire renews its bloodthirsty hunt for any rebellious cells. If it provides cover, he would keep his personal opinions, no matter how vile, shoved down deep.

Although, as Jyn is witness to a few times, he sometimes demonstrates his  _ unnerving  _ disdain for the new base’s freezing features. It usually catches Jyn at the worst possible moments, mostly because she does not know how to snap him out of those moments or how to react to the ones that she happens to witness. Cassian is a reserved individual, as is Jyn, but the ice and snow must particularly knock a nerve in him sometimes.

The snow sparks something in Cassian that is deeper than a hate for freezing temperatures or waking up to the bland sight of snow as far as the eye can see. Somewhere in him below the miles of layers of scars, wide and small, there is a small boy in a torn blue snow suit shaking in fear, huddled between a pile of crummy snow and the wall of what was his family’s home. Sometimes if he stands by the hangar doors looking out over the vast emptiness of Hoth, he can close his eyes and imagine a city of Imperials on the other side of his eyelids. Snow, as far as Cassian is concerned, will always be a touchstone of ripping pain.

Jyn, unbeknown of Cassian’s memories, finds the new landscape of the rebellion’s new home base riveting with boredom. It is a relief to be sent on a mission; for the change of scenery if anything. The cold seeps into her bones too easily if she stands in place for too long, which makes her a restless buzz during briefs with Command or waiting for the Princess and General Solo get through with one of their  _ lengthy _ verbal brawls. Unlike other more timid base-mates, she prefers to push through the middle of the crossfire of insults than wait for a reprieve to slip through. Patience was never a key attribute Jyn has known.

_______

The rare times that either one of them is given time off from off-planet missions is met with both a sigh of exhausted relief and a sunken feeling of dread towards the cold. Their shared living quarters provides so little warmth, Cassian one time fell asleep fully clothed; muddy boots, dusty blue parka and all. He knows Jyn came in at some point that same day because she threw his abandoned pack - he must have dropped it carelessly in front of the door again - on top of him where he lay on his uniform bunk with a verbally elaborate threat that has him slamming the door to his room shut in her flushed face.

Neither really had a choice in who they wanted to bunk with after her return to the Alliance. She knew practically no one on Echo Base, save Leia and General Solo, respectively, but Cassian was the only one who really begrudgingly let her crash somewhere. Silently, to herself so no one can hear, she also thinks that she can somewhat trust Cassian more than a randomly assigned quarter-mate.

She’d miss the warmth of sand more had the thought of rocky grains not brought the unpleasant flashes of a half-won mission with them.

_______

Sometimes, if Cassian is truly frozen before an assignment is sent his way, he prefers to cook as a means of staying warm. A perk of being upgraded to  _ Major _ Andor and taking on a quarter-mate is that their quarters now come equipped with a small kitchenette.

He comes home the first night Jyn dumps her bag on the bed in the room parallel his with an old pot in hand. Jyn shot him a look - eyebrows raising in silent question and shoulders shrugging indifferently - before heading out.

The kitchens are reluctant to give him anything edible to work with, but will turn a blind eye to a crate of assorted packs of ingredients if paid a certain amount of credits.

Sometimes, if Jyn is truly frozen before an assignment is sent her way, prefers to huddle under the standard issue thermal blankets the Requisitions department gives everyone on base with her datapad in hand and breathing out puffs of white breath.

The only other quarter-mate Cassian has had the chance of living with was K2, nearly two years prior. As they are both finding out, the act of living with another human is a great adjustment for Jyn and Cassian. While one is already accustomed to a sharing a living space, the other practically stumbles with the new situation. Never before has Jyn had to share a space with some for more than a period of a week, much less trust them.

Missions and assignments keep them occupied, thankfully, so there isn’t much thought put into their new lives revolving around each other now. Cassian keeps busy with the Intelligence department, especially to make up for the stunt pulled that led to Jyn’s return. Jyn, still trying to settle into Alliance life, keeps out of the way of his work.

With having a quarter-mate comes hiccups in a budding relationship, as Jyn and Cassian quickly realize. For one, they have to readjust to  _ sharing  _ a common space between them. Furthermore, they seem to agree to disagree more often than not.

She is organized in a messy fashion whereas Cassian is strictly professional, down to the order of his prefered weapons. Jyn catches wind of just how ample the captain is with security when she finds a small blaster - barely the size of her hand - wedged between the pipeline of their shared ‘fresher sink and ice walls. She makes sure to tack  _ paranoid _ to the mental list she has made of Cassian.

He knows that she comes home at some point while he gone off-planet because there is  _ always _ some sort of mess, whether it be a slew of paperwork left abandoned on the old table in the corner of the kitchenette or trail of used caf mugs left going from the table and into her room. In some way, the messes she leaves behind remind him that he is not alone anymore, that he let someone literally into his life; for better or worse he is not sure.

_______

They argue more so than agree on  _ anything _ when they are on home-base at the same time. Often, it is about Jyn’s self-carelessness and disregard for her own safety or about Cassian’s lack of any emotion but “stiff-spined-captain.” She always leaves the room fuming, cheeks flushed from having to raise her voice or swing her arm around like a tandem while wildly gesturing at something in the air.

He is usually at a sudden loss after those arguments because he knows that she will pore over her datapad and work as a means of distracting herself from having to come back at out the next day to see him off for the next assignment.

The first time they have a major argument, Jyn slams the door shut to her room and hurls her wadded-up jacket across the room, tense. She lays under her blankets, shivering, and no other light to illuminate the room than her datapad. Symbols and letters flash across the screen, taking her attention for what feels like hours.

A soft knock on the door after a long time startles her. She stares at it, unblinking. In the end, she chooses to ignore it. Another knock follows before she can refocus on her work, the taps almost hesitant. She cusses as she stands with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and lets the door slide open.

Cassian stood on the other side with hair half dishevelled and thermal shirt exposed to the cold air, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. But what hits Jyn’s senses the hardest is the smell of something spiced. He held out a bowl of what looked like beans mixed with vegetables. She hesitated at first to accept, but her growling stomach that had long been denied anything but ration bars or green slime cubes for nutrition overpowered her.

He pulled back the bowl from her reaching hands cruelly. Jyn glares.

“A peace offering. I know now that I was wrong to accuse you of being the one who broke Solo’s nose for being a nerf-herder, so I wanted to make it up to you.” ( [ Cassian's Face ](https://fsmedia.imgix.net/5e/4b/f6/82/61dd/403a/9023/a3878b07f8e8/141gifw1024.gif) )

Jyn meets his eyes, dark and boring into hers, before nodding.

“Fine. I’m hungry though.”

The door clicks shut behind her as she delves into the deliciously hot bowl of soup, not quite sure if she is warmed more from the grin on Cassian’s face after she accepted or the first real meal she has had in weeks warming her up to her toes.

_______

Their missions take them across the stars, so far across sometimes that they do not see one another for what could be weeks. The occasional days spent on base are spent in the absence of each other. Notes of calm reassurance are left behind in each others’ rooms when the other is away. Jyn’s are scribbled, like she barely remembers to leave any other reassurance than the usual scattered messes; Cassian’s are carefully penned and left neatly with brief small notes sometimes, carefully placed on her bed like he is certain she will not see it when she first gets back.

It always lifts a weight neither realizes they each carry to see the little slips of white papers left behind for each other. For longest period Jyn counts them only having met in person five times, but only during meetings with higher ranking officials or in the hangars.

They were sometimes just as simple as clasping each other’s forearms, faces grim with worry or returning from a tiresome mission and off to rest before letting go. He always promises her that he will come  _ home _ , come back in one piece.

Rarely do they make hurried reunions, but those are the times that they truly cannot help breathing a clasped sigh of pent relief when one sees the other hobble off of a ship or wobble in on unsteady legs. It was the missions that they come back from scarred or bloody, both mentally and physically, that they find it in deep them to clasp onto the other like the universe is going to be torn from their arms again.

“You’re back, you’re back, you’re back.” His mantra is muffled by her hair, covered in white dust that tickles his nostrils and her brow lined with a cut that someone must have put the bleeding to a stop with bacta. She pulls from his tight embrace to whack him on the arm with a look of absolute, disgusted betrayal written on her face.

“ _ Of course _ I Kriffing came back.”

_______

Neither one believes that they truly deserve the other in their lives, but Cassian thinks this more than she does. After a lifetime of having taken on unspeakable assignments from his commanding officers in the shadows of the Alliance’s brightest upstanding morals, he does not think that he deserves the warmth that having Jyn in his life brings.

He tells himself this as he cooks apologetic dinners after explosive arguments that put Leia and Solo’s’ to shame, after he helps her back to their quarters from the medbay after a devastating mission, after he makes her parade one of her brilliant smiles around base when she slaughters him in a game of sabacc (which he can barely play anyway).

In a way she teaches him to look forward to a future beyond the war. He never admits it to her until nearly decades later, but for now he is content  _ hoping _ she will be there when the dust finally settles from the Empire’s fall. In a gleaming dream filled with what could be a life beyond the one he has always known, he hopes that she stands there with him at his side.

But every assignment only pushes that dream further and further back into his mind, reminding him  _ that he does not deserve this, or her. _

_______

It takes her a mission gone wrong to realize that the pain she was feeling was not the snapping of her arm in the wrong place, or the burn of blaster fire across her abdomen and lower back, but the realization that Cassian would be returning to base to a missing reassuring note on his bedspread.

The Empire does not need to use needles to inject poisons or their probing droids to elicit the tears that trail down her skin or her screams. The image of Cassian rearing in the reaction of hearing that she  _ is not coming home  _ is enough to break her down, little by little.

_______

They find her and six others on a star destroyer, the  _ Il Pagasi _ , three weeks after the Pathfinder ship first returns to base with half-conscious soldiers. The same team take up arms, led by Kes Dameron himself, after the council refuses to back the idea of a rescue.

Draven enlists Cassian on an assignment before the Pathfinders take off in a fury to keep the damn best Intelligence officer the Alliance has to offer from defecting orders for another suicide mission.

It is only later when Cassian realizes she had quietly listed him as her emergency contact in her personal files. The sickening lurches tumble in his stomach the rest of the mission until he is called back to home-base.

_______

The bacta helps heal the blaster wounds and fix her arm, but she is still swaddled in bandages when Cassian tears into the infirmary. No one stops him as he makes a beeline for the row of rooms sectioned off in the back, each marked with a patient’s name. He finds hers and pushes past the medical droid standing by at the door.

She has always been a small person in physical stature, but the Jyn Erso that Cassian lays eyes on in a pristinely white infirmary bed somehow seems even smaller. Her body curls close around a bandaged arm pulling it close to an equally wrapped torso, like a wounded animal would. Her hair is slick and greasy with grime and bacta. A mask covers a portion of her ashen pale face, breathing oxygen as well as a sleeping aerosol into her lungs.

Her Kyber necklace rests on a bruised collarbone.

The silent terror that had gripped Cassian by the throat for so long since hearing the news of the capture all of a sudden melts from his body. In its place it leaves behind an empty ache that hollows itself out in his chest where his heart used to be, he thinks.

Cassian cannot help it when his hands ghost over her arms but careful to not jostle the injured one. His fingers work to pull loose strands of hair carefully from her face and tuck them gently behind her ears. Never before has he felt the need to be so gentle, so devoted, so helpless to be by someone’s side. He doesn’t deserve her, but Jyn has nonetheless pried into his life that it hurts to imagine her not in it anymore.

He finds an empty chair abandoned in the hallway and pulls it into her room, planting it right at Jyn’s bedside. His fingers reach out for hers where they lay on the coarse white sheets, a weighted reminder that  _ she came home. _

_______

The first thing she does when the damn mask is cleared to be taken off by a medical droid is say Cassian’s name once, twice, three times until someone comms for the Major.

The second thing Jyn does is thank Kes Dameron profusely when he stops into her room upon hearing from the droids that she was able to talk.

The third thing Jyn Erso does when the damn Kriffing mask comes off is take Major Cassian Andor by the front of his stupid rumpled white shirt and pull him down to her level - she was still being kept on strict bedrest - to kiss him like the universe was being ripped from their arms again.

_______

Being unable to serve on off-planet missions lands Jyn working on data-splicing and data filing until she is cleared for active duty again. She wishes more than anything to be dispatched with the Pathfinders instead of sitting on an ice planet all of the time.

“How did you do it?” Leia bursts into the quiet corner Jyn has claimed for herself in a near-empty hangar, a perch on top of a crate that had been wedged into a corner of the room. She could huddle in her corner with a blanket over her legs and files scattered around her, clear view of everything around her. No one even knew she existed up here but Cassian, who only chuckled at the hiding spot that she so often disappeared to apparently.

“How did you even  _ find me _ ?” Jyn blurts, annoyed that her attempt at avoiding the Princess was not enough apparently. Leia hoists herself up onto the crate, cheeks flushed freshly pink from her latest verbal match with General Solo.

“How did you get Major Andor to stop fighting with you so much?” Leia asks her, completely ignoring Jyn’s exclamation. The younger woman swipes at something on her datapad, eyebrows pinching over her slender nose.

“I kissed him.”

Leia tenses. Now it was Jyn’s turn to flush at the admission; she continues.

“We realized what we wanted through all the Kriffing fodder that arguing put us through and I kissed him. Now the most common thing we argue about is which bed we’ll share when we are both on base for the same night.”

Leia goes quiet after that, almost pensive. 

_______

“Let’s say the war ends,” Cassian drawls thoughtlessly one particularly cold night as he hands Jyn a steaming bowl of thick soup. “What would you do?” He serves himself a portion before turning to lean against the tiny counter to face Jyn standing close beside him.

“I’d probably explore, but keep close to home all the same.”

He nudges his hip against hers. “And where is home to you,  _ estrella _ ?”

Jyn sets her bowl and spoon down on the counter to reach out with both hands and run the pads of her fingertips through the traces of his beard. Her beautiful green eyes roam his face, never holding back to focus on him intently than anyone has ever cared to before.

“You,” Jyn says softly. “You are my home.”


	2. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know what the Jedi use the Kyber for. Leia told me that you lost your’s when you fought Darth Vader weeks ago.”  
> “I did,” he says quietly, a shadow flitting across his face so quick Jyn almost does not catch it. He stands taller and his knuckles tighten around the cord.  
> “Then build a new one with this piece. Build a weapon that will bring the Empire to its knees and cleave its head clean off of its shoulders.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never take breaks from studying when the itch to write distracts you. Keep studying; no matter how tempting it gets, keep working. This is spring break. Studying is the only priority right now. 
> 
> \- the guilty mantra singing in the back of my head as I type away because eh

_ And in the night, you hear me calling; _

_ You hear me calling; _

_ And in your dreams, you see me falling, falling. _

 

_ Breathe in the light; _

_ I’ll stay here in the shadow, oh; _

_ Waiting for a sign, as the tide grows; _

_ Higher and higher and higher. _

 

_ And when the nights are long; _

_ All those stars recall, your goodbye, your goodbye. _

 

_ And in the night, you’ll hear me; _

_ Calling. _

_ - **Oblivion. M83. ft: Susanne Sundfor** _

 

_______

RE:  _ Do not return to base; repeat - do not return to ECHO BASE _

**Ingoing: What is happening? Communications are cutting; over**

RE: _Echo compromised; repeat - compromised, Empire fleet attacking, DO NOT RETURN_

**Ingoing: - the hell do you mean a fleet? Why are the communications dying -**

RE: _HAVEN > repeat: HAVEN > repeat: HAVEN_

**Ingoing: What the Kriff is happening to ( _KZZZ_ ) communications ( _KZZZ_ ) what ( _KZZZ_ )**

RE:  _ Echo-base lost; HAVEN > repeat: rend. HAVEN _

_______

From a young age, Jyn always knew that  _ home _ was not a place she could ever think back on in times of distress to find consolation. The earliest moments of her childhood were spent in the care of her parent’s strong arms as they fled from shadow to shadow. A hand was always there to cover her young eyes from the horrors of the Empire.

All too soon was her mother torn from her life, her father soon after.

Jyn’s oblivious childhood innocence was taken from taken from her the moment she crawled out of the hole at eight years old and grasped hesitantly for Saw. Whether she trembled from the cold or shock, neither was really sure at the time.

Grief was quickly replaced with fury. It was a silent, brooding and cruel for someone of such a tender age to be subject to such a level as she was.

There are very little comforts of being Saw’s ward. But the only thing Jyn knows for the longest time, as she is raised on dusty streets and decrepit tents, is that the Partisans became her  _ home.  _ It was a completely unconventional attachment that she makes. But there is a little piece of her searching endlessly for something larger that herself to commit to. It grabs onto the idea greedily.

The same innate piece resurfaces when she is sixteen. Her blaster had been thrown across the bunker in her maddening fury of realization and a knife was half buried in the soft sand floor. She wants to scream at herself for being so stupid, so careless, for letting the little voice in the back of her mind take part and make a father from a terrorist and a  _ home _ from a band of guerilla fighters. She should have know better, letting so many people strand her for a greater cause.

It is not until Kes Dameron is barking angrily the news above deck that Jyn realizes the severity of what was happening on Hoth. The Empire had found Echo Base and would have overran the entire system with attack fleets; Star-destroyers, troops in white skeleton masks, blasters poised for taking lives. The weight of the image in her mind’s eye sends Jyn scrambling for the hatch ladder, taking her up to the communications deck. The ship that the Pathfinders squad she is assigned to is almost too small for the mission.

The realization crashes onto Jyn, silently but terrorizing, that she had made a new  _ home _ out of the rebellion. This time there was a specific person involved with the meaning of that word, but the weight of the situation presses on her chest like a stone nonetheless.

No matter where she escaped to in the galaxy, the Empire always followed her.

_______

_ Echo-base lost > proceed to rend. Haven > HAVEN _

The single line of information flashes across the screen of Major Andor’s port and he wants to fling the damn thing across the deck of the ship but he contains himself. He instead bangs a fist against the back of the cushioned pilot’s seat - the one Jyn sometimes curls into to doze in - and cusses something unapologetically brash in Festian.

He does not need to consult the secure data to pull up the  _ rendezvous: HAVEN  _ coordinates. They are practically branded into the back of his mind. 2.2427 > 3.886 < 673.52. He had made sure to make Jyn memorize the same string of numbers, should the dreaded occasion arise.

Cassian carefully enters the coordinates as the ship presses through Vallt’s atmosphere. He sends a silent prayer out to the stars beyond the cockpit window before pulling down on the throttle. Specks turn to blue rays, pulling him away faster than light.

_______

It takes the Princess, Jedi and Wookie 315 hours - thirteen day post their disappearance from Hoth - for them to hobble onto the Alliance’s nearly silent radar. Cassian watches from the window of the space vessel overlooking the combination of systems that is their home galaxy as the  _ Falcon  _ sputters into orbit and makes contact.

Leia visibly starts to tremble with suppressed emotion when Command asks about the disappearance of General Solo, the smuggler that more than once pulled on the young woman’s braid to get her to even grin. Her eyes go dark and the Wookie lets out a noise of keening, a lament of grief so low it makes Cassian’s stomach twist more than it already is capable of twisting, as she recounts the events leading to the capture of her captain.

Cassian barely sleeps when he is given a few hours leave from Command to get some rest. He prefers to pace the tiny single room he is assigned with a datapad in hand, perfecting any work possible for him that he can get his hands on. Words and codes alike flash before his eyes in a haze; reports melt together at some point but the beating in the back of his eyes barely lets him rest.

He knows that it is foolish for him to worry so much, or at all, about Jyn. Albeit he cannot help it. He clings onto the fact that the assignment she was given the last time he saw her - four weeks to be precise, because of  _ course _ he keeps meticulous count - would keep her far from the devastation that was Hoth. The uncertainty of her whereabouts was still unsettling though to Cassian. The Alliance could only go so long without outward communication. Spies would soon be dispatched in earnest for information soon.

The little voice in the back of his mind that reminds him that  _ he does not deserve her _ keeps up its mantra. It keeps him company late into the time he is given alone for himself as he fumbles for sleep on the tiny cot, or when he stalks the halls of the aimlessly floating Alliance ships, waiting for  _ anything _ from the squad.

_______

Jyn’s heart beats almost painfully in her chest as the ship lurches and stumbles out of hyperspace. Beside her, Kes watches with glazed, exhausted eyes as the pilots maneuver the ship through the vast darkness. They come up carefully to the clutter floating beyond the reach of the Empire that serves as the nerve center of the Alliance.

“Never thought I’d be so happy to see the sight of those old war-dogs floating around so much,” Kes banters, but his voice is so flat and murmured so softly Jyn almost does not catch his words. Her eyes stay on the grey vessels, like she is afraid they will disappear if she does not keep them in her line of sight.

“They’ve been so silent, almost didn’t think they made it out alive,” Naona grumbles from where she sits on the deck floor, half leaning her shoulder into Jyn’s legs. Her thick red fringes stick to her forehead in a greasy mess from the lack of a proper chance to wash up.

The last eleven days have been some of the longest in Jyn’s life. With no way to communicate with the Alliance meant that there was no clear indication of orders. There were limited supplies on board for all thirteen of them unless they stopped a few times on some backwater planets. They traded what could be spared and in some cases Jyn stole more than she did bargain with locals. Naona and Nikolas personally disapproved of the way the rebel got her meager meals, but never brought it up. Survival and not getting sought out by Stormtroopers was more important than giving lessons on moral behavior.

The youngest of the pilots, a young man named Rikko, makes first contact.

“This is Pathfinder Squad three. Squad three requesting to land; over.”

A moment of tense silence passes. The Kyber is warm from Jyn clasping it so tightly.

“Pathfinder Squad three, I repeat, requesting to land. Officers aboard are Lieutenant Kes Dameron and Sergeant Jyn Erso; over.” Through the viewport, the stars twinkle beautifully against the dull metals of the Alliance ships. Kes nibbles on his lip.

The entire squad seems to breathe a sigh of collected relief when Rikko and the second pilot, Analia, clap their hands and hoot in success. Naona’s face brightens with a rare grin, Kes closes his eyes and stretches out his arms, while Jyn claps him once firmly on the shoulder before turning to the others. He opens his eyes to meet hers.

“Feel good to be back, Lieutenant?” she jests.

“Like you wouldn’t believe, Sergeant.”

The air of the Alliance’s massive fleet ship where they are directed to dock feels so perfectly clean to Jyn she wants to take as much as she can in at once. It is a liberty to be able to stretch out her arms and not knock into someone, or a wall. She and Kes are immediately sought out by the loading droids, who whizz with orders to debrief immediately. One offers to escort them. The rest of the squad is led to medical.

People barely spare a glance in their direction as they follow the gleaming silver droid to Command. Some pass by them hurriedly carrying tools or supplies, others occasionally datapads or fighter-pilot helmets. It is almost as if the attack on Hoth was a mere inconvenience to the bustling energy of the rebellion and forced them to move out to the outskirts of the galaxy.

Like the one on Hoth, the cavernous room Command uses for its meetings is impeccably white. The rounded structure of the room allows for anyone from any part of the room a view of the holo-projection table at the center. People flit from place to place, excusing apologies as they bump around each other and disappear out the closed doors that line the top floor.

Mon Mothma and a pair of Mon Calamari greet them at the round table. A holo-projection of the fleet disappears from the air and a lists of information come up in its place. Jyn recognizes her name on it. 

Leia sits pensively in the corner, legs crossed and a datapad balanced on her knees. The Wookie, Chewbacca, sits beside her but glances every so often at the screen when the Princess says something to him.

Jyn’s stomach practically burrows in on itself when Cassian walks through the door directly across from her line of vision. His hair is overgrown, the tips merely brushing his eyebrows like the first day she met him. The Major rank insignia sits proudly on his jacket lapel and an inkling of relief floods her senses that he was whole and unhurt.

“Sergeant Erso, can you confirm that the events Lieutenant Dameron has recounted did occur?” a Mon Calamari asks her in a raspy voice, its beady eyes swiveling to meet hers as its webbed hands paw at a datapad. Across the room, Cassian turns at the sound of her name. His eyes fall onto her, needing and disbelieving at the same time.

Jyn looks away and back at the Mon Calamari.

“Yes, they did.”

Mon Mothma gives them what could only be described as a nod.

“Then both of you and your squad will be given time off. Reconvene and rest after such an arduous journey. On behalf of the Alliance I want to apologize for the lack of communication, but due to a number of close calls with Imperials after the attack on Hoth we truly could not risk long distance transmissions.” Her voice carries the creamy calm that is unique to a Senator; it washes over them in a buffered way that has Jyn fighting off exhaustion. An officer in grey pulls Cassian out of the room in a flurry of conversation.

Leia finally stands from Chewbacca’s side. She hands him the datapad.

“You will each be assigned a living space. Requisitions can see to your needs if questions should arise. The Mon Calamari have multiple means of refreshers, so please do not hesitate to wash the grime of the last few weeks off.” Princess and Senator stand side by side at the opposite end from the returning officers. When the meeting convenes, Leia takes Jyn’s wrist and pulls her close, away from where the others can overhear.

“I can personally request that you be assigned my quarter-mate.” Her eyes gleam with light refracting against the white of the panelled walls. “That way no one will question a frequently empty room while you’re off with a certain Major.”

Jyn tries to force down the heat creeping up on her neck. “I’d appreciate that.”

Leia grins, but the warmth does not reach her eyes. Dark recesses pool on the skin under her eyes. Jyn turns to leave the room, but Leia catches her one more time.

“I get it now,” the younger woman says in a quiet tone. “I get how the fighting helped. It built something we were too blind to see.” Her hands slip into the pockets of her dark vest. Jyn’s throat thickens at the realization of what the Princess is admitting.

“You do.” It neither comes out as question or remark. She turns to leave again.

“We did.”

Leia reaches out for Jyn’s hands. They were gloved and caked with dirt compared to the cleanly version of the other woman’s. A slip of paper - so small Jyn almost misses it - presses into her filthy palm. Leia’s eyes meet hers fiercely regardless.

“Welcome home, sergeant.”

_______

The room number is scribbled so small into the paper Jyn almost cannot see it, but it is there nonetheless. She does not have a doubt of who’s room it is, but only that she buzzes to get there. She first hunts down a fresh set of clothes to change into after stepping out of a refresher. After weeks of grime infested living her skin feels brand new from the wash. Her hair drips cooly from the hasty knot at the back of her head. Her jacket hangs from the crook of her elbow as she walks.

She stops before the durasteel door, fingers splayed inches above the lock. The hall is empty save the occasional floor droid that squeals as it sputters down the hall. A nervous prickling blossoms in her chest but it is overruled by the need to see him. The lock flashes green under Jyn’s hand and the door whooshes open.

The room is bare save for the standard cot wedged in a corner and a bag of items across the room parallel the cot. There were no printed pictures tacked to the wall to gaze at loved ones frozen in time or even loose clothes strewn across the room.

Cassian is already standing from where he sat at the end of the cot when Jyn steps in and the door closes firmly shut behind her. The only light source is a strip across the ceiling emanating a soft blue hue. It makes Cassian’s eyes darker than she has ever seen them.

For a moment neither moves. Their eyes roam without reserve with relief.

He thinks his chest is going to implode when she releases a sound like a sob and breath of utter relief when she makes the first move. Cassian lets her pull him down to wrap her hands around his shoulders so tight he could not leave her grip even if he wanted to. His arms settle around her back and she has to rise up on the tips of her toes to accommodate for the lack of height but neither of them gives a damn.

“You’re okay,” she mumbles into the skin of his neck over and over between pressing her lips there. His nose presses into her wet hair.

Her muscles ache from exhaustion and overuse, but he holds her so tightly she could lean all of her weight into him and he would never dare let her fall. Weeks of pent-up worrying and praying that Cassian was not on Hoth without her knowing bleeds out of her system to be replaced by a sense of being whole from being reunited. He was her home and her stability, her reason for returning.

There was a danger in putting so much trust into another person but Jyn could not give a reason even if she wanted to right then and there. The only thing her mind seemed to focus on was the brush of his beard over the crown of her head or the way her arms drop from around his neck to inside of his jacket. His heartbeat is strong and real under her palm. They stand there like that for what feels like forever but not enough.

“The Empire tracked us,” he tells her as they detangle. “I wanted to send a transmission but High Command ordered a cease on all communication.” His eyes plead with her to understand. “It’s been like hell not knowing…” He does not finish.

“And I thought it’s been hell having to put up with Kes’ snoring,” she flashes. Cassian’s look of gloom is replaced instantaneously by a smile that lights the room up so much more than the poor excuse of a light could overhead. Jyn’s chest thrums contently.

“Really that bad, eh?” Cassian takes the jacket from Jyn’s arms and drapes it over his bag in the corner of the room. It is the same collection of tools he left Hoth with all those weeks ago. She imagines an abandoned room now overturned by Stormtroopers; his cooking tools strewn across the iced floor and their mess of shared blankets torn. Her stomach twists unfavorably.

“Well, not as bad as  _ yours _ though,” she laughs as he loops an arm around her shoulders to reel her in close again. His chest shakes with huffs of soft laughter. It is low and rich at the same time, a vibration she absolutely loves to press her ear over his ribs to feel.

The act of living together comes easier to them the longer they can orbit each other. For Jyn it is a comfort unknown for years to have the freedom to rifle through Cassian’s possessions until she finds a long sleeved shirt that is branded with the musk of shaving cream and the of undeniably  _ him _ . She pulls it over her head and loops her arms through the sleeves as he works to pull out an extra blanket. They work harmoniously for once without the need to bicker about where they would be sleeping. He turns the dial to lower the lights as she crawls under the covers and claims part of his pillow as her own.

The cot is too small and not built to accommodate more than a single person but they make due with what they have. In the end they decide on sleeping on their sides, one of his arms tucked in the space between her neck and the mattress, his chest flush with her back. The intimacy of her letting her hair down to sleep always amazes Cassian. His arm settles around her waist to keep her from shifting and falling off the mattress.

As he measures his breaths to Jyn’s that peter out into a deep sleep, he can almost imagine that for once he deserves this moment of calm warmth.

_______

When she is not reconvening with her Pathfinder squad about upcoming work they could be facing, Jyn spends her time divided between Leia and Cassian. With the Mon Calamari being the owners of the fleet vessel the new nerve center of Command being located, everyone has to now adapt to a day averaging thirty hours. Jyn and Cassian each respectively report to their duties for a full twenty of a day’s time like everyone else aboard. They get the remaining ten for themselves to pass as they please. Some people will sleep through the full bracket - Cassian made sure Jyn did just that the first day she is back - while others spend it in the company of friends and datapads.

Contrary to what Jyn was imagining would be an arduous quarter-mate, Leia takes the rebel by surprise by revealing to be very compatible to Jyn’s personality. Both share an unnerving protection for the Alliance and a certain commanding officer, respectively, to themselves. Leia is a clean and orderly quarter-mate more than anything, which Jyn is used to having bunked with Cassian for so long. She sometimes wonders if it was protocol being raised by the Alliance to be so precise about their lives, down to the order of their weapons.

On the rare occasion that their leisure hours match, which is every 90 hours, Jyn finds herself in Cassian’s room. They spend the time brooding side by side on the small cot working on their separate datapads.

Some nights they never mutter more than a greeting before setting to work or disappearing under the covers, tangled and content to just be in the other’s grasp.

_______

“What have I ever done to deserve this,” Cassian laughs one time as they huddle together under his blue parka and a blanket on his cot, munching on protein bars Jyn found that have less flavor than dried rations. The comment is meant to pass airily like the jokes she makes about Kes’ clumsiness around a certain pilot, or when Jyn pokes around until she finds some small way to make him smile so she can she those dimples she adores on him.

“What do you mean?” Jyn asks non quizzically as her knee bumps into his.

He gestures idly with a hand at the space around and between them as if that was an answer sufficient enough. “This; being happy for once.” Jyn’s laugh dies in her throat when Cassian’s words sink low in her gut in a very unpleasant, heavy fashion.

“Cassian, you deserve some happiness in your life; you know that right?” But of course he does not - not at first. So long he has spent in the shadows of the Alliance’s gleaming prowess of  _ hope _ and anything good it stood for, he was able to convince himself that no light could ever reach him. His face goes placid and Jyn reaches out to cup his hands in hers. They are both calloused from war.

“I have done unspeakable things on behalf of the Alliance, -” he starts.

“Yes, I know but you still deserve something, -” she cuts.

“ - How can I? After killing, after twenty years how can you tell me that I deserve an inkling of happiness, -” Cassian presses on loudly. His eyes flash fiercely across her face.

“- Shut up Cassian.”

He shuts up so abruptly but the words still sing in his mind clear as light.

Jyn shifts so she sits on her legs bent beneath her. The blanket shifts and tumbles down her back but she makes no move to adjust it again. Their hands entwine together.

“Listen to me very clearly, because I only want to have to say this  _ once _ : you deserve anything that makes you happy.” Green eyes meet brown under the blue light.

“How- why?”

It was such a broken question. Somewhere deep inside of Cassian was the ghost of a little child soldier learning to take lives for the good of the greater cause, whatever that may be. His entire life was torn from him in a day and since then that small part of him has always known that the good he knows in his life was never meant to last. That is the scarred legacy that a lifetime of war leaves on its recipients, its longest soldiers that outshine the dim of survival. It is he could never imagine a life where he smiled because someone laid in his bed and told him jokes. It is why that after a life of having more blood on his hands and taken more lives than he can count,  _ he does not think he deserves her. _

“I need you to understand that you deserve the galaxy. If I could, I would give you the entire universe, every star and planet within it. You deserve everything, because I want to see the light in your eyes when you smile. I want to feel the warmth of your hands and the tickle of your beard across my skin because you deserve anything and everything that makes you happy, alive and whole.” 

Cassian cannot bear to tear his eyes from her face.

“You came back for me, so many times I thought it was too good to be true. Everyone in my life has always left me behind, whether they were tired of the commitment or leaving me behind for the ‘greater cause’ in their life. You came back for me even when I left you with the Alliance after Scarif. Somehow, I think that you are the only person that has ever truly cared about me in my life.”

“Jyn…” but he doesn’t know what to say to her when her eyes flick back up to meet his. They brim with wetness, but she does not stop there, letting the weight of the realizations and moment press on them.

“You let me feel safe, Cassian, and became the  _ home _ I never before could have wished to have ever  imagined having. You have back time and time again when I don’t think I ever deserve the luxury of someone to  _ care _ about me; yet you always do. For that, I want you to understand that you deserve  _ everything _ , or peace the universe has to offer. You deserve it, Cassian, because I love you and want you to understand what I see every time you come back for me like no one else has.”

Through the tears that threaten to spill forward, Jyn watches the face of a man who gave his life to a cause greater than himself at the expense of the light inside of him slowly unravel in a look she could only describe as disbelief and awe mixed as one, focused on her. His eyes soften more than any kiss she could press to his skin could, or any amount of light. Jyn watches as his shoulders relax like the weight of the entire universe had been lifted from them, which she doesn’t deny he has convinced himself that he carries. For once his features soften to show his true age, melting away the spy beyond his years.

His hand tightens around her fingers as he pulls her forward and Jyn doesn’t even try to hide the tears anymore. Skin slides against skin as she maneuvers enough to rest her forehead in the crook of his neck and collarbone. The heat of his skin threatens to burn her. 

_ Safe _ ; she was  _ home _ .

“Thank you,” he murmurs, voice thick with emotion.

_______

Luke is not the hardest person to seek out when she asks Leia where he could be. The Princess walks with her down to the common barracks that the pilots share and she sees him there, surrounded by hundreds of other men and women like he was not the last Jedi the Alliance has seen in decades; like he was normal despite a rank that outran him by years. The pilots immediately come to attention upon seeing Leia.

Jyn pulls Luke aside to a quiet corner and reaches under the fabric of Cassian’s shirt that she wears for her necklace. The Kyber is warm from resting against her skin. Luke’s eyes latch to it like it was the last source of water on board.

“This necklace was a gift from my mother before she was killed by the Empire. She told me to believe in the Force when she tied it around my neck. I was barely eight years old.” The cord of the necklace comes undone quickly and she reaches forward for Luke’s hand by his waist. It was cold as metal. The Kyber settles neatly into his palm, like it was always meant to be in the hands of a Jedi.

“Jyn, -” he starts but she cuts him off.

“I’d like to think that somewhere out in the universe, my mother is proud of me for what I’ve done for the galaxy. Unfortunately I do not believe in the Force as much as she would have liked. But I believe in  _ you _ , Jedi.” The words fall easily and Jyn has to look Luke in the eye to stop him from trying to hand her back the Kyber.

“I know what the Jedi use the Kyber for. Leia told me that you lost your’s when you fought Darth Vader weeks ago.”

“I did,” he says quietly, a shadow flitting across his face so quick Jyn almost does not catch it. He stands taller and his knuckles tighten around the cord.

“Then build a new one with this piece. Build a weapon that will bring the Empire to its knees and cleave its head clean off of its shoulders.”

_______

Weeks later, after a mission that has Pathfinder Squad 3’s spirits in low quantity, the entire Alliance seems to be abuzz with the news about the green blade that whizzes in the training rooms and finds itself clipped to their hero’s belt.

It burns as green as Jyn’s hopeful, convicting eyes and Cassian cannot help but find the coincidence fitting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wishing that ending came out stronger but Jyn telling Luke to cut the Empire into ribbons really stuck with me haha
> 
> Comments always welcome; neg or pos! Leave them below! - H :)


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